1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data processing system, and more particularly to a data processing system which provides the user with vocalized information of web pages that are written in a markup language.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today""s expanding Internet infrastructure and increasing amounts of web content have enabled us to utilize various information resources available on the networks. While it is definitely useful, the Internet is not equally accessible to everyone. One of the obstacles to Internet access is that people must be able to afford to buy a personal computer and subscribe to an Internet connection service. Another obstacle may be that it requires some knowledge about how to operate a personal computer. Such computer literacy, however, is not in the possession of everybody. Particularly, most resources on the Internet are intended for browsing on a monitor and not designed for people who have a visual impairment or weak eyesight. For those handicapped people, the Internet is not necessarily a practical information source.
To solve the above problems with Internet access, the Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-164249 (1998) proposes a system which vocalizes web page content by using speech synthesis techniques for delivery to the user over a telephone network. However, a simple text-to-speech conversion is often insufficient for the visually-impaired users to understand the content of a web page document.
Taking the above into consideration, an object of the present invention is to provide a data processing system which converts information on the Internet into a more comprehensible vocal format.
To accomplish the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a data processing system which supplies a user with vocalized information of web pages that are written in a markup language. This data processing system comprises the following elements: a call reception unit which accepts a call from the user""s telephone set; a speech recognition unit which recognizes verbal message being received from the user""s telephone set; a web page data collector which makes access to a particular web page to obtain web page data therefrom, when a request for that web page is recognized by the speech recognition unit; a keyword extractor which extracts a predetermined keyword from the web page data; a replacement unit which locates a character string associated with the keyword extracted by the keyword extractor, and modifies the text of the web page data by replacing the located character string with another character string; and a vocalizer which vocalizes at least a part of the resultant text that has been modified by the replacement unit.
Further, to accomplish the above object, there is provided another a data processing system which supplies a user with vocalized information of web pages that are written in a markup language. This data processing system comprises the following elements: a call reception unit which accepts a call from the user""s telephone set; a speech recognition unit which recognizes verbal message being received from the user""s telephone set; a web page data collector makes access to a particular web page to obtain web page data therefrom, when a request for that web page is recognized by the speech recognition unit; a keyword extractor which extracts a predetermined keyword from the web page data; an addition unit which locates a character string associated with the keyword extracted by the keyword extractor, and modifies the text of the web page data by inserting an additional character string to the located character string; and a vocalizer which vocalizes at least a part of the resultant text that has been modified by the addition unit.
Moreover, to accomplish the above object, there is provided yet another a data processing system which supplies a user with vocalized information of web pages that are written in a markup language. This data processing system comprises the following elements: a call reception unit which accepts a call from the user""s telephone set; a speech recognition unit which recognizes verbal message being received from the user""s telephone set; a web page data collector makes access to a particular web page to obtain web page data therefrom, when a request for that web page is recognized by the speech recognition unit; a character string extractor which extracts, from the obtained web page data, a group of character strings that have a semantical relationship; and a vocalizer which vocalizes the group of character strings extracted by the character string extractor.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate preferred embodiments of the present invention by way of example.